Impartial Thought
by Chibikat the Canuck
Summary: Draco contemplates childhood, Buddhists, his dead fish, and Harry Potter. (HD hintage)


**Author's Notes**: This is just…yeah. I like writing Draco, and I like writing in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way (albeit with proper grammer and editing), and I like exploring character like this. It's definitely a nice break from homework. How I shall destroy you one day, my foe.

**Rating**: R, or whatever the hell the equivalent of R is now on for swearing, mentions of sweet, sweet manly love, and insults toward Buddhists.  
_Impartial Thought_

"Only want what you have!"

It's a little known fact that the man who coined this phrase shouted it as he was getting fucked on a pile of money by three beautiful women, all with fake breasts, each a brunette, blonde, and redhead, respectively. An odd thing to cry out during coitus, yes; but truer, at least, than the more accepted phrases of passion such as "I love you!" or "No one's ever touched me like this before (insert name here)…"

All of this is completely factual, of course, except for the man in question's screaming of the phrase during an orgy. But it's safe to assume that the bastard who came up with such tripe was certainly having a riches-fuelled grand old time with beautiful and kinky people in an exotic locale; only someone _that_ physically sated and in the arms of a fierce afterglow could bring themselves to write something along those lines. Well, them, or Buddhists. I fucking _hate_ Buddhists.

Or, perhaps the cynic in me is speaking out of turn. Then again, the cynic in me rarely shuts up for any period of time, lectures and discourse with my father obviously notwithstanding, in which case I'm usually too engrossed or terrified to be cynical.

You see, the whole point of desire is that you don't _have_ what you covet. Idiot. Read a bloody book. Fiction and literature and non-fiction and graphic depictions and play texts will all happily inform you that desire ends where acquisition begins. It's that simple. Or, if it's simply too much hard effort to pick up a volume of anything involving words, look to your friends – better yet, look to your parents. Whether this small sampling will say so explicitly or not, though, is a different matter entirely; subtlety is an art hard to put into practice alone, but next to impossible to find if not properly trained.

My father, being the man that he is, of course taught me that subtlety is a prized attribute; I, being the boy that I am, completely dismissed this for quite a while until the scourge of puberty had sunk its claws into me and settled down for a long, awkward stay. There is _nothing_ dignified about cracking your voice in the day and ruining your sheets at night.

Digressing, Malfoy subtlety was, for me, a learned and practiced trait. My father, I have noticed through the years, also had to adopt such subtlety in the way that I did – though I never would have known, truth be told, had my mother not pointed it out in her own way.

My mother, by nature, is an incredibly graceful and typically aristocratic woman. She is, by all standards, a picture of beauty in its renaissance of refinement, far removed from the awfully uncouth wilds of Out There in the lower ponds of class and status. My father is, of course, much the same way; but what my mother lacks is a temper, of almost any kind. At least, I think she does. My father, on the other hand, has an endless propensity for anger when the mood is correct – a trait that I have inherited from him. Unchecked, my father, I am sure, could offend all the wrong people in a fit of rage and permanently remove the Malfoy family from respectable society due to his sharp tongue and dull cane. Luckily, he is an incredibly intelligent man who obviously knows better; but, still, that aspect is there, and I know this quite well.

My mother, then, offers a balance. If ever she is greatly displeased by something, she will withdraw from all emotions, offer a sneer or a crinkle of the nose, and say nothing more of the matter – or of anything much, actually – for about a week. She will be present at meals and around the grounds of the Manor, but there will be an air of resentment about her that will eventually clear up on its own. After internalizing such feelings, enveloping herself in them, and then using up all energy it offers, she returns to her usual self until the next slight against her. When I was much younger, if ever she felt guilty about it (which was a rarity), she would give me some form of sweet which I would promptly demand more of, receive, demand yet more, maybe receive, and then feel sick and rightfully so.

That trait, right there, is one that both my father and mother share. In my earlier years, both believed that I ought to learn through some form of experience, to understand through my mistakes – no one must know that this form of parenting has resulted in a case of head lice, electric shock, a broken toe, a severely wounded arm that was quite nearly amputated (bloody Hippogriffs, ought to be executed, the lot of them), food poisoning, regular poisoning, an unpleasant drug-induced hallucination at the age of ten, a downright terrifying drug-induced hallucination at the age of fifteen, and a burn on my right leg reaching from my lower thigh to my knee that I still have to this day.

I am now a very careful person.

My parents, needless to say, were often disappointed in my own choices of my earlier life. The sheer humiliation and debasement of being asked by one or both, "And what have we learned today, Draco?' was enough to keep me firmly in line. If I was about to do something potentially new or somewhat off in the presence of my family, and I felt an eye on me, I knew that the outcome of carrying out whatever action I intended to carry out would only result in something painful or downright embarrassing. One thing my parents excel at is bringing out the worst humiliation in a situation – no matter what.

Physical pain hurts, but it goes away. Pain of the body, like pleasure of the body, is an incredibly hard state of mind to recapture once having slipped from its grasp. Humiliation, though – memories of complete and utter humiliation stay with you for a lifetime. And _that_ is far worse, and far more powerful, than any fist, cane, or Cruciatus curse.

So then it stands that, if humiliation is so awful and horrendous, then I would do everything within my power to avoid it at all costs, so that I may remain in the safe and happy bubble of Untouchable Refinement; to an extent, I suppose this is true. Then again, to an extent, I have the distinct feeling that I may be a blooming sado-masochist, but I doubt I've acknowledged that outside of strange, unfettered doodles on spare parchment.

Harry Potter. You goddamned bastard whelp of a shit.

Hn. 'Shit' is too crass. Goddamned bastard whelp of a(n)…arse? Sod? Obvious homosexual? No, that last one is too close to home – that would be like the pot calling the kettle black, as it were. I could just tell him he has poor hygiene.

Well. He doesn't. But he'd believe it if I said so, perhaps.

I think I can attribute my own predilection towards those of the meaner sex in part due to my parents, in part due to my father (existing as a separate entity outside of the realm of 'parents'), and in part due to the fact my habit of getting into Mother's clothes and make-up went undiscovered until I was twelve. There is something to be said for the feel of chiffon and lace against the skin. Besides – I am now an expert at subtle eyeliner and mascara application, which are art forms in and of themselves, so there.

My parents do not have what one would define as a 'loving' relationship; they are together for social functions that require a public appearance, but otherwise, they are strangers to each other. As a young child, I always assumed the litany of (now that I think about it) attractive men and women that would come and go through the doors of Malfoy Manor really _were_ just 'good friends' of my parents', and not substituting as partners in marital bliss. What was more confusing is that Father would always introduce me to his male friends, but never to those who were female (and it was a rare occasion that Lucius Malfoy ever entertained female 'guests'); in retrospect, I think that in a very strange way, he was trying to make me…jealous. He would have such a smug expression on his face as he said their names, the look he normally reserved for business matters; in turn, I would simply be polite – if not somewhat confused – and then proceed to be on my way. He would then seem disappointed in me for the next day or so.

I suppose this can be what comes of an arranged marriage between consanguineous people; I've long ago accepted that I was brought into this world as a necessity, and not because of 'what happens when mummy and daddy love each other very much'. My parents may not love each other in the romantic way, but they seem to be bound together in the way that siblings are – which makes sense, considering they are first cousins. Incest, as far as Purebloods are concerned, is not frowned upon, but almost encouraged in order to keep the blood as 'clean' as possible; of course, imagine the confusion when the offspring of such marriages end up dying during childbirth, or are born with incurable diseases such as hemophilia, or turn out to be…mm, 'imbalanced' is a polite term. We went to the LeStrange's manor for dinner as few times as possible; Father once asked why there were never any House Elves around serving the food, and Aunt Bellatrix simply smiled and said 'tuck in'. We decided against it.

These same people I were related to were also the only ones around for me as playmates of sorts during my younger years – however, these playmates were few and far between (since bringing children to social functions was and is an obvious faux pas), so being the lonely child I was, I quickly developed an imaginary friend. Her name was Lorelei, and she hated my dress cloak, and I argued with her about it. Sometimes we would play spy in the library and in the kitchen, and I would leave secret messages for her between the dishes, which would always be gone within the next three hours if I checked. My codename was Marcus, and hers was Tanja, because of course we were German when we were spying on the French. We both hated the French, even though I speak it fluently, since it is the language of the Malfoy family, and the Purebloods. Since then, I've grown to accept my family's roots in French culture, even though I still cannot stomach crème brulée.

Growing older, Lorelei would visit me less and less often; she finally stopped coming, once and for all, when I was eleven years old, and rooting around my mother's dresser. On the days my mother was 'gone' (which, now that I think about it, were quite often), I would sneak into her bedroom and indulge my cross-dressing habit in a most careful fashion – the sheer beauty and subdued glamour of my mother's clothing has always fascinated me, and since a much younger age, I decided I wanted to be just as gloriously refined. As my small hands eagerly explored the confines of my mother's drawers, I came upon a stack of papers tucked away behind her hosiery; curious, I took these papers out, sat down, and read and re-read each and every single secret message I had ever sent to Lorelei, catalogued by date.

If asked, I would say that I have never cried, and no, nor will I ever, because men – especially _Malfoy_ men – do not cry. However, that would be a lie. I have never cried because of something genuinely acceptable, like a death in my family, but I have cried. The first time I ever remember crying was when I was four, and I accidentally killed a fish I was keeping as a pet. His name was Defton. Lorelei was not around to entertain me, and as I sat studying this fish swimming around its confines, wonderfully oblivious to anything beyond it, I decided I would introduce Defton to the rest of my room, and to give him a break from all that swimming. After about ten minutes of furious groping about the bowl and thoroughly soaking my sleeve, I finally scooped up the tiny, golden fish in my hands; the feeling of it flopping madly against my palms tickled my skin, and I dropped it on the carpet, where it continued to flop and flail. I furrowed my young eyebrows, and commanded it to stop moving like a good little Malfoy child ought to, but it took Defton about a minute or so before his jerky movements finally came to a slow standstill. At first I was pleased with myself and the authority I exerted over my fish, so I complimented him and told Defton that he had done well in listening to me; I then picked him up, and showed him the things in my room that Father had brought me from overseas, and what Mother had given to me for Christmas, and the very first book I ever read.

After an hour of this, and feeling quite satisfied with the fact that Defton was now thoroughly acquainted with my room, I slipped him back inside his bowl, and watched with confusion as he floated to the surface. Four-year-old logic dictated that he was still inert because I told him to be, so I loudly informed Defton that he could start moving around again. He didn't. Angered by this fish's insolence, I yelled at him to start moving, but once again, absolutely nothing happened. I paced my room, staring at Defton, and told him what a horrible, awful fish he was, and that I would never let him have a break from all his swimming ever again if he was going to be so rude.

My father heard me screaming from down the hall, and entered into my room with no preamble (preamble is not my father's forte). He looked at the floating body of Defton, looked at me, and informed me that I was acting like a commoner by raising my voice. I told my father that it was necessary for me to shout, for when I took Defton out of his bowl and told him to stop flapping about, he stopped like a good fish should when I gave him a sound vocal thrashing, and that now he clearly would only respond to a raised voice. My father exhaled his breath shortly, and told me that fish could not live outside of water, and that like the stupid boy I was I killed Defton, and _that_ was why he had stopped flapping about. I stared at him. With a disapproving glare, my father left me alone once more to attend to more important matters.

I then stared at the fishbowl, wherein Defton still did not move.

I had killed him. I had killed Defton, and he had died without ever knowing the world outside of his bowl, and that was _my_ fault entirely. I slowly realized that I had watched this fish die in front of me, and that it was directly due to my interference. I had robbed this fish, this tiny speck of a creature, of something that it was entitled to, that I wanted to give him. Defton was not coming back to see the rest of my room, nor the rest of the mansion, because I had killed it. To a four-year-old, this is overwhelming. I cried for half an hour.

So I cried when I read those secret notes that were meant for Lorelei but were, for some reason that I knew I knew, in my mother's dresser. As far as I know, those notes are still tucked safely behind my mother's hosiery.

Letting go of Lorelei – the idea of Lorelei as a companion, mostly – was shockingly easy, because that year, I met Harry Potter. My parents had taught me to intensely dislike the boy for what he stood for, but also that such intense dislike should not be a factor in regards to my circle of friends at Hogwarts; I did not know at the time that my parents were using me to gain further power, but even when I realized it, I truly did not care.

As far as I know, I'm the only child to have ever had an imaginary friend that I often did not get along with. I tend to be confrontational, and since she was a product of my own imagination, so was Lorelei – hence why she hated my dress cloak, and then decided one day in July of 1996 to try to kill me. It was nothing new for me to "get along" with someone that I generally quite despised at times, and who despised me in turn. Father had instilled that in me. Mother, too, through her marriage to my father.

So my first attempt at this thing called "friendship" with a scruffy-looking boy with specs did not exactly go as planned, but it could have gone worse. After all, I could hardly account for the boy's lack of manners, knowledge, and a proper hairbrush, so it was clearly beyond my capabilities as an excellent negotiator and businessperson (at eleven years old) to coerce this Harry Potter onto my side.

My side. It makes it sound like a game. I suppose it is, except for the fact I haven't a clue what we're necessarily playing for, nor all the players, nor all the rules. In Fifth Year, I nearly cried out "You're cheating! You're bloody _cheating!"_ when he started taunting me about Father, locked away in Azkaban. It wasn't good – it wasn't _right_. There was something so unsavoury about that, and it made my blood boil and my heart race to such a degree that I almost shouted those words without thought. No – Harry Potter, by the established rules, was not allowed to gain the upper hand through my family, since I could not gain ground through his, what with them being dead and all. It wasn't fair.

It wasn't _fair_.

Then again, I suppose there's little in life that is. As a Slytherin, I know full well that playing completely straight, by the rules, and "fairly" will get you nothing but an early grave – rules were most assuredly not made to be broken, but to be played skillfully around, like a cat slinking about for prey. Or a snake. Father said I'm supposed to only use snake analogies. Then again, Father is in prison. Potter enjoys reminding me of that fact – I enjoy reminding him of the fact that a prison is better than a grave, eh Potter, and then one of two things will happen. One, he will become unbearably angry, and his face will turn as red as the Weasel's awful hair, and he'll throw out any insult he can think of at me, and I enjoy this greatly, because in a game of words I always win.

Two. He'll pause, as if a small pebble had jammed the gears in his brain, and he'll stare at me from behind those hideous spectacles of his; his eyes will go blank for a brief moment, and I won't be able to help but wonder what, exactly, he is contemplating, what gristle of my words he's chewing on – why chew when one can spit, and at someone so abhorrently, wonderfully baiting as me? Usually he will look to one side – the right if he might want to say something, the left if he knows he does – and then back at me. His eyebrows will be slightly furrowed, his lips formed into a small frown, and the blankness in his eyes will be replaced with something as far from anger as one can possibly manage.

Pity.

I wasn't sure what it was, to begin with; at first, to be completely honest, I thought perhaps a blood vessel had burst from the rage he was no doubt feeling from my witty and punctual remarks and barbs, and he was trying to hide it. Then, I figured it might have been a glance of defeat – yet, his body language contained no slink, no metaphorical tail between the legs. Besides, Harry Potter is too stubborn and stupid a boy to simply admit defeat when he ought to, or maybe too clever to back down when he might be just shy of…well…winning. Maybe.

Then, as I continued to think about that strange look the first time he'd used it, I waded through all the various possibilities that surfaced that were in my favour; it was during dinner in the Great Hall when I slowly deduced what he meant with that pause, that glance away, that small shake of the head.

Harry Potter pitied me. _Me._ Draco Malfoy – Draco Bloody-Sleeps-On-A-Pile-Of-Money Malfoy.

I told myself I didn't care (I did). I told myself it didn't matter (it did). I told myself that if anything, I should be the one pitying him (that one is up in the air). I told myself lots of different things, with plenty of different explanations, with even more assorted possible outcomes. I love to make plans like that in my head; thinking of an idea and watching it come to fruition in my mind, I've liked it since I was small.

Sometimes I wonder exactly what it is that Harry Potter wants, and I create various situations in my head; more often than not, I imagine that this ruffian's sole purpose is to try to ruin my name and repute, and he concocts his wicked little schemes so that he and his menagerie of friends will beat Slytherin out for both the Quidditch and House Cup. Other times, I think that all he wants is more attention and more fame, and so he advertently heaps more troubles onto his plate – no doubt, he builds up everything to be far worse than it is, so that all the professors and all the students will fawn over him. I'm somewhat sure that this might not be true, but there have been moments where I can only question.

Sometimes I imagine he wants me to be his friend; he'll apologize for everything he's ever done to me, he'll offer his hand, and then I'll smirk and say, "I think I can choose my own friends, thank you very much." I'll smack his hand away – or sometimes I smack his face, I don't know which one I like better, because knocking the proffered hand out of the away is such nice symbolism – and I'll walk triumphantly past him, and he will be left to stew in his misery and his dejection, and I'll see just how much he likes it, that bastard. Victory is sweet.

Sometimes, though, when I'm asleep, I dream I fuck him and I wake up with sticky sheets. They're usually fairly pleasant dreams. I should probably be disturbed, but for some strange reason, I'm truly not. Perhaps this is because I understand that dreams are out of a person's control – I could have just as easily dreamt I'd been gang fucked by the Canadian Quidditch World Cup team, but this would not mean that I actively wished to whore myself out to a litany of Canadians.

Admittedly, my thoughts will wander when I am in the waking world, and yes, they will touch on the subject of sex, and yes, they will touch on the subject of me bending Harry Potter over a desk and fucking him hard, and yes, they will sometimes drift to me kissing Harry Potter, to me running my hands over his body, to me pressed close against him, to me wondering what he smells like when he's that close, to me wondering how birds smell if they have beaks, to me wondering why the Queen owns all the swans in England, to me wondering how feathers know how to stop growing at a certain length, to me considering that, if there is a heaven, haircuts might still be mandatory, to me wondering what language is spoken in heaven if there is one, to me wondering how German developed into German and French into French and Latin into dead, to me considering that Harry Potter might know Latin if he knows Parseltongue, and just…beyond.

My thoughts are prone to wander, but that's only healthy.

I wonder if Potter only wants what he has. I couldn't possibly understand how he might – all he bloody has are his nitwit duo and his stupid glasses.

Well. Ignorance is bliss, after all.

/

…whee. D Reviews improve circulation.

Kat


End file.
